The Ohio Hurricane

Well, you know that my blog is called “The Amazing Adventures of Little Miss Sunshine” and I have to tell you, the adventures keep coming! They come so fast that it’s hard writing them down for you before the next one happens.

My last note was the day I came home from Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Toledo. We finished the note in the car (Mommy is pretty good at typing on the computer so I have her do it while Daddy drives). Anyway, the wind seemed really strong on the highway! Daddy was holding onto the wheel with two hands; he often just holds on with his wrist and Mommy asks him to be careful – meaning please hold on with two hands – but this time he put two hands on the wheel all by himself. Mommy and I were actually pretending that we did not notice all of the cars on the highway swaying in and out of lanes. Daddy gets pretty stressed while driving to Toledo and it’s best if we just pretend he is by himself. Back to the point. Daddy’s friend Paul called and said that he and his son Ryan (my friend who we go out to dinner with but who I have not seen in awhile because we are all so busy) were coming back from the Bengal’s game and there was a power outage in Cincinnati. We live in Cincinnati! Then Mommy’s friend Kelly called and said that the power was out at the mall by our house. Kelly was in town for the weekend with her daughter Zoe for Zoe’s birthday. We were going to try to see them but with the power outages and the crazy wind, Kelly and Zoe were going straight to the airport in Dayton. We were glad when we finally got off the highway because it was windy and scary and I bet that Daddy’s arms were getting so tired. He said that it felt like the wind was going to blow the “SUV” (van) over. But when we got off the highway, there were traffic lights out and trees down on the ground everywhere. There were even trees in the street so we had to drive on the wrong side of the road to get around them.

When we got home, we expected that our power would be out too. Many of our neighbors were standing outside and their trees were laying in their yard too. And it was still windy! But Daddy pressed the button for the garage door and it opened! How lucky for us! The only tree that fell down in our yard was one of the ones we are having cut down and it fell six feet from our new fence. Our new fence did not fall and was not damaged either. Our roof was not damaged and we did not lose any of our siding. We learned over the next two weeks just how lucky we were. We found out through the news (because we did have TV), that we experienced 75 mile per hour winds due to the hurricane Ike that hit Texas and came up through the middle of the country. I guess technically speaking, we had our first hurricane. We could call it the “Ohio Hurricane” even though it went through Kentucky too. The crazy thing is that no one could predict it or track it because there were no clouds or rain, just wind. Really strong wind.

Mommy’s friend Kelly called us back later in the evening to tell us that her flight was canceled and she could not get out until Monday morning and asked if they could spend the night. Oh we love slumber parties so of course welcomed them to our house. I got to stay up a little later than usual (my bedtime is 8 pm these days). Zoe was so nice and fun and played and played with me. I was still mainly crawling so she crawled on the floor with me and even let me play with her stuffed animal named Wrinkles.

The next day we were not sure if school would be open or if Mommy and Daddy’s work would have power either because the TV said that over on million (lots and lots) of houses in the Kentucky and Ohio area were out of power. But our luck continued as school and work had power and were open! Kelly and Zoe went to the airport and we went on our merry way, just like any other day. But we were part of the 10% of houses that did not lose power! And even our satellite for our TV worked, and it usually does not work during storms. It’s like we were living in a bubble. A happy bubble with power and hot water and TV to watch the weather reports. Our friends like Paul and Gail and Kristy did not have power, so they came over to our house to shower, store food and do laundry during the week. Can you believe that they did not have power for over a week?